A Wired UK article just told us a dirty little secret that the pharmaceutical drug world would rather keep quiet. That fact is: drugs are having a difficult time beating the placebo effect, and increasingly so. In fact, they're finding the placebo effect is getting stronger in people, making it more difficult for drugs to show any improvement over it. The credit for the increased placebo effect has been attributed to the increase in consumer advertising, which makes many consumers "believe" more in the drugs and their effects. Because the placebo effect is getting stronger, many widely distributed drugs would have had a hard time getting approval to begin with, if they were tested against today's placebo effect. Many drugs, notably Prozac, have also been shown to falter when compared to placebo - after they're already on the market. ..."From 2001 to 2006, the percentage of new products cut from development after Phase II clinical trials, when drugs are first tested against placebo, rose by 20 percent." And 50 percent of drugs that fail during clinical trials do so because they cannot improve upon the sugar pill. Pills for Crohn’s disease, schizophrenia, and depression have unexpectedly come up short against the placebo. Even surgical procedures and gene therapies have been proven no better than a skin incision or saline solution, which are in themselves placebo treatments. ...While the exact mechanism of the placebo effect is still unknown, researchers have discovered and elaborated upon the power of expectations. Not surprisingly, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is familiar with the concept. In 2004, it spent $23 billion on marketing, crafting an image of safety, health, and well-being through television and print ads as well as the aggressive pursuit of trusted doctors and health-care professionals. Indeed, the positive effects of many modern medical treatments including cough medicines, antibiotics in the case of some infections, and the majority of back and arthroscopic surgeries have been proven to be the result of culturally ingrained expectations of their usefulness. Not one of the listed treatments beats a less expensive alternative. ...What the growing placebo effect shows is not so much the failure of modern medicine as much as the success of the modern production of beliefs. The modern health-care narrative is so firmly entrenched that it needs no introduction. You are sick; you visit the doctor; he diagnoses the illness; he prescribes the appropriate medication; you get better. Often this process, and not the actual treatment, cures us with its normality. This is why 55 percent of Chicago doctors have prescribed a placebo treatment to their patients.
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May 18, 2025, 04:08:22 PM